


Rogues' Gallery

by Rens_Knight



Series: In the Burning of the Light [8]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fiction, General fiction, Literature, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 19:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18430856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rens_Knight/pseuds/Rens_Knight
Summary: After a tragic encounter between heretic Sith Lord Tarssus Kallig and her former masters, Ashara Zavros became a pariah to the Jedi, thrust onto a path as apprentice to Lord Kallig that weaves the narrow way between the Light and the Dark.  And that apprenticeship is blossoming into something more.But on her way back to the Empire after a successful mission to parlay on Lord Kallig's behalf with a breakaway Jedi faction, Ashara unexpectedly finds herself at a tough crossroads between her old life and the new...





	Rogues' Gallery

 

**Star Wars: The Old Republic **

**In the Burning of the Light**

**"Rogues' Gallery"**

 

 

Ashara Zavros, apprentice to the heretic Sith Lord Tarssus Kallig, squinted, willing the Force to keep tears from spilling from her eyes. 

Aboard the Republic shuttle, she was surrounded by white...white, and more white.  She'd been accustomed to that for so long--since the first time she left the Jedi Temple, in fact.  Whether it was their troopers' armor or the interior of their ships, the Galactic Republic loved that color.  Now, though...it was a relief to know that in a minute, she'd step through the airlock and onto that Twi'lek smuggler's 'rather too-aptly named' ship, as Tarssus would have said: the _Rogues' Gallery_.  The smuggler, Dal'kepel, probably didn't exactly cater to the latest in Republic interior design sense.

Nor, for that matter, did her home of late...the Sith Empire.

She _still_ couldn't believe, some days, that she'd made a home in the _Empire_.  Well, technically aboard Tarssus' ship, which didn't necessarily have to _stay_ in the Empire, if they flew stealthily enough, but still.  It was a Sith Lord's ship.  That pretty much tied her to the Empire--or at least, the hopes she now shared with Tarssus that something better could come of the place.

It was because of those hopes that she was just returning from meeting with a group of Jedi who had broken off from the Council, led by Master Themion Quintis, a Miraluka knight who--much like Ashara herself--had gotten fed up with the Jedi Order's lack of action in dealing with the threat of the Empire.  And, as it turned out, not unlike Ashara, Master Quintis was willing to entertain the idea of contact with fellow rogues within the Sith Empire.

Master Quintis was everything that Ashara believed a Jedi ought to have been: thoughtful but still decisive, wise but still pragmatic and adaptable in dealing with harsh realities, even to the point of being willing to work with a Sith who shared his objectives.  She felt shame at that thought, considering how that statement sounded towards her former masters, Ryen and Ocera, who had been about the closest thing to parents that the Order had ever let her have contact with.  But the thing was, they hadn't been willing to consider the idea that Tarssus was different.  They'd attacked him, he'd tried to defend himself without lethal force, but they'd kept pressing the point no matter much how she _and_ Tarssus urged them to stop...and it had ended in their deaths.

And that whole business of not having real parents in the Jedi Order...was that to try and ensure people were as thoroughly indoctrinated as it had turned out Ryen and Ocera were, and as she could have been if the pride and passion in her had died all the way as it was supposed to when a Jedi went from Padawan to Knight?  Tarssus had had the care of his father for longer, even, that most Sith, and had turned out far from being the worst of them, as the Jedi always warned when they seized Force-sensitive babies and toddlers from hesitant parents (can't let them have those critical early bonding years with their families that Sith children get before _they_ go to _their_ Academy, after all, and you _especially_ can't let them grow to adulthood without our all-knowing guidance)...that Lord Tarssus Kallig had turned out to be the _best_ of them.  And not even by the low standards that most Jedi applied to Sith, either.

Master Quintis, though, had still called himself Jedi.  As far as he was concerned, the Council had turned its back on _him_ and other sensible Jedi, rather than the other way around.  But Ashara...much as it was still ingrained deep in her to call herself Jedi, to subordinate herself to the Council even to the point of requiring their permission to marry...she was something else now.  Sith robes, and Jedi sabers.  Who the hell went around the galaxy like _that_?

Well, her, obviously.

At least Master Quintis hadn't been too hung up about names or robes, dealing with her.  Maybe the Miraluka way of seeing through the Force alone made that kind of ridiculous stuff easier to ignore...though that didn't quite explain why Quintis, like many Miraluka, wore a headdress to cover the place where a Togruta or human's eyes would be.  Let alone a headdress with that kind of intricate beadwork, that didn't just offer variations in texture, but in color as well.  Whatever it was, though, Master Quintis was sending her back to the Sith Empire, to Tarssus, with a message of interest and potential cooperation.

Not that her travels could be publicly traced back to Tarssus if they had any hope of succeeding.  That was why a different ship had been hired to courier her back from Scarif to Imperial space than the one that had brought her in--and the flight plan certainly didn't list its true destination.

As for said ship's crew, Ashara's eyes hadn't even had time to adjust from the antiseptic brightness of the Republic shuttle to the grunginess of the smuggler's vessel when several sets of heavy footsteps double-timed it down the hallway in nothing even slightly resembling unison.

"Whaddya think, Lord Struction?"  Ashara stiffened.  The voice echoing down the corridor had a casual Republic accent, sure, but it certainly wasn't like people's loyalties never shifted--for principles, occasionally, but most often for thrills, for power, or for profit.  _Especially_ profit.  It was said if you conceive of it, no matter how bizarre or flat-out _debased_ it was, somewhere in the Galaxy it was out there for sale to the highest bidder...and that plenty of bidders were there to be had.  "Is our new cargo some kinda Sith?"

Oh, damn.  Was this Dal'kepel some sort of Imperial bounty hunter?  A spy?  Some sort of _trafficker_?  She wasn't sure which one's particular brand of hell was worse, but if this so-called smuggler had brought a Sith Lord who was very much _not_ Tarssus Kallig with him to inspect the new arrival, then things were definitely about to go to Malachor in a microsecond--

_Focus on the Force_ , she told herself.  _Don't think about worst cases and what-ifs.  Feel the Living Force, exist in the moment and deal with whatever is_.  It was the only type of Force the Jedi had ever spoken of, that made real sense to her these days.

"Operative words being 'some kind of,' I'd say."  The raspy voice belonged to a male Mon Calamari, who rounded the corner with a Twi'lek and human not far behind.  Was _this_ unlikely being her enemy?  "Definitely got the Force, but it's all...weird."

The Twi'lek smirked.  An ochre cape fluttered around his body with each step he took.  "That some kind of technical Jedi term?  'Weird'?"

"Yeah."  The Mon Cal's head bobbed in as humanoid-like a fashion as his anatomy would allow.  "Weird."

Now they were talking about Jedi?  He certainly didn't _look_ like a Sith Lord when she reached her senses out towards him.  In fact, although he was clearly above-average compared to the general population where the Force was concerned, there really didn't seem to be _that_ much there at all.  A youngling like him probably would have been sent to one of the lesser service Orders subordinate to the Jedi Knights.  Or in the Empire, she could almost hear Tarssus reminding her, he'd have been killed the first time he crossed one of his fellow students--or instructors--the wrong way.

"So are we good?" the human pressed.

"Yeah.  We're good," the Mon Cal replied.  "I think."

"Great."  The human male with dreadlocked mane tied back behind his head folded his arms as he glanced over at his companion.  "He _thinks_."

Ashara felt her patience wearing thin faster than she could summon the Force to rein it in.  "Guys, I'm not going to kill you or rip you off, if that's what you're concerned about."

The Twi'lek's cape fluttered behind him as he stepped to the front, extending a hand shaded the light green of forest camouflage to shake Ashara's.  "Dal'kepel, captain of the _Rogue's Gallery_ , at your service.  Well, technically Master Quintis' service, but same difference, seeing as it means getting you where you're going.  Sorry about the...uh...security check," he said, as he let go of her hand.  "Can't be too careful when you're taking cross-border jobs, as to what you're getting into."

"I know what you mean," Ashara replied.

Dal'kepel's left headtail jabbed towards the Mon Cal like a pointing finger.  "Meet my early warning system, Guss Tuno, also doing business as Lord Struction and Master Wanderfar."

"Pleased to meet ya," Tuno rasped.  "So you bailed on the Jedi too, huh?"

"You used to be a Jedi?"  Ashara gulped.  This guy might claim not to be with the Jedi Order anymore, but might he still plan to report her comings and goings to the Council?  Or the Republic Strategic Information Service, for that matter?  And then there was the matter of _how_ exactly Ashara had left the Jedi...

Tuno shrugged.  "Wasn't for me.  But then, if you ask me, I don't think it's for _anyone_ who doesn't get legally _abducted_ at birth and taken to a Temple to be brought up in that little cult.  I was eighteen when Master Lorenn recruited me.  It didn't last long--turned out I had a little too much of a head on my shoulders for that mess.  I know, they're big Republic heroes and all, but it's kinda sick, if you ask me."

Blood rushed to Ashara's ears and she gritted her teeth.  Even now it rankled, hearing anyone speak of the Jedi that way.  But then...just as Tarssus had pointed out, she _had_ been indoctrinated from birth to react that way--though not with the kind of emotion that burst so easily to the fore these days.  As for Tarssus--he too had been discovered late, though by the Sith instead of the Jedi.  And the more she got to know him, the more sure she was that had something to do with the good head on _his_ shoulders.

"I know some people who would agree with you," she finally replied.  "They're Sith, though."

"Yeah, 'it was a big mistake training you at your age and all; only Sith do that kind of thing.'"  Tuno sketched quotes in the air as he spoke.   "That's what the Jedi said too--right before I finally told 'em to suck it.  So what's _your_ story?  Too much thinking for yourself?  Too much sentient feeling?"

"Yeah, something like that," Ashara muttered.

Tuno grunted.  "Can't say I would've run off with the _Sith_ , personally, but I _do_ kinda get it--that whole claustrophobic thing you get when you just can't take all that chanting and brainwashing anymore and you just gotta do something about it or go completely bonkers." That _wasn't_ exactly how it had come about for Ashara, of course, but she wasn't about to contradict the Mon Cal's cleverly-woven narrative if it got her through this without any more questions.

Dal'kepel, for his part, indicated the human with his opposite lek.  "This is Corso Riggs, my first mate.  He's not exactly big on Sith..."

"So keep out of his way," Ashara filled in.  "I'm not really a Sith--but got it."  She knew how weak that sounded considering how she was attired and where she was headed, but she felt compelled to say it anyway.

Riggs held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.  "Hey, I'm not _that_ bad...I don't go around shooting random women out the airlock or anything like that..." Still, the human clearly wasn't up for much other conversation at the moment, so Ashara and Dal'kepel both let it be.

As for Dal'kepel, the green Twi'lek was more than ready to provide a distraction.  "You've still only met half the crew," he said.  "Come on, Miss Sith..."  Ashara winced at that.  She hadn't told him her name, and the smuggler was doing his job well by not asking...but _that_ wasn't exactly the nickname she'd been hoping to pick up.  "I'll show you where the geeks hang out."

_Geeks?_ Ashara thought to herself.  _This ought to be interesting..._

"Like _you're_ no geek?" Riggs shot back, consternation over Ashara's presence suddenly almost forgotten.  "Says the guy with a whole _cargo hold_ full of Wookiee comic strips in his quarters!"

The Twi'lek squared his shoulders, lekku quivering with an effort to hold them still as he fired off a clearly well-rehearsed retort. _"_ First off, they are _not_ comic strips--they are _graphic novels_."  Riggs rolled his eyes.  "And secondly, they _are_ precious commodities since no one can delete them--"

"Except a spark and a little oxygen--"

"--or slap digital rights restrictions on them, so once they're yours, they're _yours_.  And I'll have you know _Chhraiiroku and Nokchotia_ is studied in universities throughout the galaxy as fine literature--"

"--which is about the only thing that'd even make you _think_ about setting foot on a university campus, Dal-Talks-a-Big-Game-Kepel," the human concluded, taking that rhetorical flourish as his cue to turn and head the other way, presumably back towards the bridge.

Feeling quite ignorant herself, though in a sense having little to do with formal education, Ashara offered no comment on the whole exchange as Dal'kepel started his way in the opposite direction.  Guss Tuno, for his part, trailed along with Dal'kepel as they headed around the ship's main corridor towards what looked to be a lounge with a hologame table.

There, a slight-bodied Mirialan woman sat with elbows leaned on the table, carefully scrutinizing a hand of ornately-illustrated cards depicting creatures so fantastical Ashara couldn't be sure they actually lived somewhere in the vast Galaxy or not, wielding a variety of flashy powers that could have been inspired by the Sith, or perhaps the general public's wild imagination as to what the Jedi and the Sith did.  Opposite the Mirialan woman sat what _had_ to be a Neimoidian, to judge by the textured brown coat he was wearing, and the matching cap on his head.  It was nowhere near as showy as what more well-to-do Neimoidians typically wore, but the outfit was very clearly _not_ Duros in origin.

Guss Tuno leaned over and whispered to Ashara.  "Bet you they don't even know we're here.  You're really gonna love the show..."

Nothing too exciting looked to be going on at the moment, just a whole lot of thinking.  Still, the look of expectation on Dal'kepel's face as _he_ watched the two players suggested she ought to humor Tuno.

"All right," the Neimoidian muttered, half to himself, half to his fellow player as his fingertips skittered across the tops of the cards in his other hand.  "All right, I think I've got this."  Hunched over his cards, brow furrowed, it was hard to tell without the Force if he was genuinely panicking about his chances in this game, or if it was just his facial features that made him look that way.  Suddenly, the Neimoidian sat straight up in his chair, slapped a card down on the table, and waved his newly-free hand in a grand gesture as he boomed, "I summon the Screaming Starweird Swarm to attack, at the cost of one Plasma and three Void MidiFounts!"

The Mirialan flashed a sly grin.  "The Multiversal Sleshnarr Adept blocks your spell for two Void and two Tholin, and is getting ready to deal you two damage if you don't--"

Now the Neimoidian was _really_ getting into it, revealing his astonishing height as he stood, waving a new card in his hand as if he believed it to be a magical talisman.  "Ahhh, but I cast the Slithering Singularity Virus for three Metal MidiFount and two Void!"  His accent shifted fluidly from Republic Basic with just the faintest hint of Pak Pak to a flavor of Imperial Basic most commonly used by stage actors on both sides of the border, peppered with sharp t's and rolling r's as he proclaimed, "Hast thou any spells with which thou mightst endeavor to defeat my Starweirds' fourrrrrrr damage to thy fair Elemental form, my lady?"

The Mirialan plunked her cards down on the table, leaning back with a sigh of mild disgust.  "I could've taken you out in a heartbeat with Riga's Raging Torrent, but you just _had_ to play that thing, which just so happens to be absolutely impervious to Water-based attacks.  I give, Von.  You win."

His bombast dissolved utterly as he sat back down, reaching forward to shake his opponent's hand as he said, "I humbly thank you for your surrender."

"So where did you _get_ that card, Von?" the Mirialan woman pressed.  "I don't remember seeing that last time we played."

"I sort of might have got it off a youngling on Ando when I went for shore leave at AquaCon," the Neimoidian mumbled.

She cocked an eyebrow at him.  "Really, Vonddado?  Off a _kid_?  Did that kid even know what that thing is _worth_ before you wheeled and dealed a prize card like that away?"

The Neimoidian wilted in his chair at first, then threw up both hands in a defensive gesture.  "Hey!  I donated _eight hours_ of free labor repairing his _very_ inoperative droid, thank you very much--that droid was like his big brother, and the repair shop by the convention center was quoting the family a really _outrageous_ amount to get him fixed just because they were obviously visiting from offworld.  Totally worth it."

"I wouldn't call that _all_ the way free, Von--"  But there was a smile curling at the edge of her lips.

"But you should've heard the proud way that little youngling chittered when he handed over the card--like he'd done something really, really big to save his best friend.  And I think his parents felt better too, not feeling like they were being treated like pitiful charity cases..."

Now the Mirialan's face beamed as she locked eyes with Vonddado, and she reached across the table, setting one of her much smaller leaf-green hands over each of his ashen-green ones.  "And that's why I love you, Von, that you think of stuff like that."

Unseen by the couple, Tuno opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and made an inducing-vomit gesture with one finger, that looked especially impressive on a Mon Calamari.  Dal'kepel jabbed Tuno with his elbow.  Then he cleared his throat, and the couple jumped in unison.

"Hey!" the Mirialan woman exclaimed as they shoved their chairs back and shot to their feet almost in unison.  Ashara was struck by just how tiny the Mirialan really looked next to Vonddado--the man had almost all the height of Khem Val, but definitely none of the bulk.  "How long have you been standing there gawking?"

Dal'kepel smirked.  "Long enough to watch Von mop the floor with you at _Elementals_."

"That card should be banned."  The Mirialan turned and stuck her tongue out at her Neimoidian...boyfriend, apparently.

Vonddado feigned a cough, which sounded suspiciously like, " _Soreloser._ "

"All right, will someone on the voyeur squad introduce the passenger, please?  Dal?  We're waiting..."  She crossed her arms and tapped her feet with almost as much theatrical flair as Vonddado had shown earlier.

The Twi'lek captain stepped forward.  "Well, her name's confidential, I'm afraid--but Master Quintis vouched for her when we got to Scarif, and so does Guss...he thinks...so I feel pretty good that we're not totally betraying the Republic here, or setting ourselves up to get sliced and diced by Miss Sith here."

" _Not_ a Sith," Ashara muttered again, with the feeling of fighting a losing battle.

"Oooh..."  The Mirialan, who _still_ had yet to be introduced, leaned into the shadow of her much taller boyfriend.  "Some kind of secret agent?"

Vonddado shook his head.  "She's not gonna _tell_ us if she's a _secret_ agent, Kixi.  But I like the theory."  Realizing by this point that nothing like a formal introduction was going to happen, the Neimoidian took matters into his own hands.  "I'm Vonddado Briimyo, ship's engineer.  And this is my girlfriend, Kixiaralu Wihtu, computer slicer extraordinaire.  So I guess technically, there's a pretty good chance that if you _are_ a secret Republic Strategic Information Services agent, Kixi could probably find out."

"Nah, not with the rates it would take to make it worth my while to risk breaking into an SIS database," Kixi replied.  "Or the Jedi Order, though I've heard you have to be Force-sensitive to break into _those_."  She fixed her blue eyes on Ashara's.  "That true?"

"Probably so," Ashara found herself saying.  Her former masters _had_ always been awfully certain that the only threat to their secrets came from the Sith Lords, not from the non-Force-sensitive majority.

Kixi leaned over to Von again.  "Told you."

"Told me what?"  The great orange orbs of Neimoidian eyes, with their sine-wave patterned slit irises, were hard to read, but Ashara was pretty sure that right now, they were full of merriment.  "You didn't place a bet, so not paying."

"Had to try," Kixi said.  It was really something to behold, Ashara thought to herself.  It was as if every moment she spent around these two, she was merely an outside spectator to something singular and impenetrable, something that would always burn brighter to these two than anything or anyone else ever could.  Even a Master and Padawan's bond had nothing on this.  As for what she and Tarssus had now...was it-- _would_ it grow into this?  She could never have this--not without the careful supervision of the Jedi Council to ensure it never grew too great--for those with the Force could never risk clouding their sight with something like this.

And yet the eyes of the young couple--surely no older than her and Tarssus--were filled with nothing but contentedness.  _No wonder they didn't want you to see this_ , a voice whispered in the back of her mind, that sounded an awful lot like Tarssus.  Not that the Sith Lord himself had pushed too hard, once he saw how uncomfortable it had made her.  That did nothing to banish the thought, though.

"So I guess you used to be a Jedi?" Kixi asked.

"Kinda still am," Ashara replied.

"The Council definitely doesn't like breakaways," Kixi said.  "I don't have to slice into their records to know that's why Master Quintis and his crew had to set up all the way out here on Scarif.  Heck, they barely even tolerate the Green Jedi for staying so attached to Corellia.  At least the way the comms traffic looks to me, I'm pretty sure the Council and the Greens leak stuff to the HoloNet to get at each other without _looking_ like they're acting like Sith in...public...oh.  Excuse me.  Probably shouldn't be making Sith comments right now."  Vonddado set a hand on Kixi's shoulder, as if ready to pull her away with him if they had to run.

"I _did_ grow up with the Jedi--I'm pretty sure I've heard everything you could come up with and more," she assured the Mirialan slicer.  "Probably even _said_ a lot of it."

Now Vonddado's eyes locked on hers, full of sorrow and compassion.  "You grew up at the Temple, didn't you?  They took you when you were a baby?"

"Actually I was _born_ there...not sure if it was an accident or the Order allowed my parents to..."  _Breed_ , was the term that came to mind.  "Have children.  But they didn't raise me--I never saw them.  I grew up with all the other younglings."

"Well, at least they didn't have you all killing each other.  _That's_ something, at least."  The pain in Vonddado's eyes seemed to have a Force all its own as it bore into her.  The man wasn't a Force-wielder--it was just that the anguish was _that_ strong.  She'd heard the stories about what happened to the young on Neimoidia and its purse worlds.  Now she had confirmation that for this man, at least, it was true.  His grip on his girlfriend's shoulder strengthened, not violently, but as if he were relying upon her for the strength to stand.  "Look...if you really are going into the Empire to try and help us all, be _careful_.  I know what the Sith do with _their_ grubs, or at least the ones that have the Force--except that they're just old enough by then to carry vibroswords, instead of scrabbling for scraps with their hands.  I know what it's like to live on a _whole planet_ full of hearts with gaping holes in them.  You know how hard it is to ever believe that hole can be filled, even a little?  That's why I will _never_ go back, now that I've found a home where people...you know...actually _have each other's backs_."

"He was nineteen when they took him.  A lot older than most Sith are when the Academy takes them.  He had his father until then."  Dal'kepel's head whipped over towards her.  Only then did Ashara realize the full import of what she'd just divulged.

The yearning in Vonddado's eyes said, _I wish I'd been so lucky._   Aloud, he said, "Still...be careful.  Climbing out's a lot harder than diving in."

"Yeah..."  _There is no emotion, there is no emotion..._   "I've definitely noticed."

"Well...um...if you run into any tech problems while you're here," the Neimoidian engineer finished, bringing his palms together in a meditative sort of gesture, "you know where to find Kixi and me."

Ashara managed a small smile.  "Thanks for that."

As she, Dal'kepel, and Tuno retreated from the lounge, a gold-plated droid trundled up towards them.  Unlike the traumatized 2V-R8, whom Tarssus was slowly been helping out of his shell, this droid was full of nothing but programmed, chipper enthusiasm.  " _Masters, shall I show the guest to her quarters?  Or perhaps you would prefer to grant the lady a berth in yours instead?_ "

The former Jedi almost choked, the montrals atop her head almost standing on end at the shock.  Was he--did the droid just suggest--had the smuggler captain actually been thinking about trying to _get her in bed_ with him?  The Jedi in her wanted to flee.  The Sith in her wanted to ignite her sabers in warning.  The end result was her freezing to the spot.

Dal'kepel, for his part, suddenly couldn't find an exit fast enough.  His brown eyes bulged, his cheeks flushed a deeper olive as the veneer of casual confidence suddenly dropped away and he stammered, "I...uh...C2, show her to _her_ quarters and don't bring that up again!" as if the command were all one incredibly long word.  Then he spun around, snapping his cape around him with a single lek as he stalked off, in an attempt to reclaim some of his deflated dignity.

As for Ashara, she followed the droid in a silence that was very much _only_ of the external kind.  Oh, Force, she couldn't get behind closed doors to meditate all these damn emotions away fast enough...

 

 

Ashara had lost track of what time it was by the time the door chime jolted her out of her trance.

When she sensed the presence in the Force on the other side of the door, she couldn't help groaning to herself under her breath.  It was definitely the Twi'lek smuggler captain, Dal'kepel, who was about the last person she wanted to see right about now.  Did he think she was going to change her mind about the offer that seemed _so damn obvious_ that the droid hadn't thought twice about suggesting it _for_ him?  Like _hell_ she would.

Except that _wasn't_ how the Force outside the door felt, not anymore.  Sure, the presence wasn't as strong as someone powerful in the Force--not even as strong as someone with only a mild gift like Guss Tuno.  But it was enough for Ashara to realize that the olive-hued Twi'lek felt...drained.  Not at all like someone who had the drive to do something aggressive.

The Togruta muttered a very un-Jedi-like swear word under her breath--one she'd heard from Tarssus' former pirate turned navigator, Andronikos Revel--and stood up from her kneeling position on the floor, brushed off her grey Sith apprentice's robes, and headed over to the door to let Dal'kepel in.

If the Force hadn't told her before, the hangdog look on the smuggler's face made it plenty clear the formerly confident, caped Twi'lek was no longer at the top of his game.  "All right...I know _you_ already know, but I kinda figured out that wasn't one of my most brilliant moments back there."  A crooked grin flashed across his face, and retreated just as quickly.  "I mean, you must think I'm an absolute _scumbag_ after that, especially if you really came from the Jedi.  I mean, from what Guss tells me, they don't exactly smile on the touchy-feely kind of sentient relations."

"It's...heterodox, for sure," Ashara confirmed.  "Not standard practice.  Too many entanglements, too easy to start getting distracted and slip onto the Dark Side."  Damn, but it felt so strange, so _hollow_ to say that, now that only other Jedi outcasts, like Master Quintis, were willing to acknowledge her as one of their own, to recognize that she really _had_ meant to give her life to follow the Light before it led her into a path so deeply infused by the Darkness.  These things...these old teachings from her masters...they were all she'd had, and to turn her back completely on all of that would feel like taking her sabers and running them through Ryen and Ocera herself.

Dal'kepel shook his head, his lekku lifting themselves up and folding over his shoulders like a set of crossed arms.  "Even if C2 hadn't...uh...extrapolated from some of the other times I've invited lady visitors aboard, which I _am_ sorry about, in case that wasn't clear already, I can't help thinking that to a Jedi, a guy like me without the Force, and with a liking for womankind, would probably fall somewhere below the Kowakian monkey-lizard."

Ashara winced at that.  She'd learned a lot about what the galaxy thought of the Jedi since her abrupt departure...and not _all_ of the unfavorable reviews came from the Sith Empire or from 'washouts' like Guss Tuno and 'malcontents' like Master Quintis and his compatriots.  While it wasn't something her instructors had dwelt on much, she'd heard vague allusions to people being jealous of Force-sensitives for the power they couldn't have...but maybe that in itself spoke to the real problem: for such an explanation came from the top looking down.  Obviously the Sith--well, most Sith--did so literally, as tyrants over their people.  But Dal'kepel's self-description probably had a lot to do with the aura the Jedi projected as well, towards the rest of the galaxy.

  
_Yeah, yeah, I know, us unwashed masses_ , Andronikos Revel had snarked in one brief conversation, when Ashara had commented--chided him, if she was being honest with herself--on the way he'd dragged himself onto the _Fury_ with an obvious, massive hangover after a stop on Nar Shaddaa.  That had brought the attempt at dialogue to a screeching halt.

As for Dal'kepel...well, she didn't imagine it would go very well if she lectured him about the perils of promiscuous sex.  Serious as those perils were, and as wrong as the Jedi _and_ several other cultures considered it, if he believed her words to come from a place of condescension--and what if they _did_ come from a place of condescension?--then what good was it going to do, if he was expecting her to come from such a compassionless place?  That misplaced sort of moralizing might come in the name of the Light but too often it harmed instead.  There were other ways of helping...and they all started with working on oneself first.

Dal'kepel's voice shook her out of her discomfiting musings.  "Hey...should I just go?  I guess I've really burnt my bridges good."

"No...no, there's no need for that," she tried to assure him.  Boy, she'd picked a bad time to zone out, and while she'd learned in her time on the _Fury_ that non-Force-sensitives were generally fairly perceptive, sometimes not being able to read someone's surface emotions in the Force meant a whole lot got left to the imagination.  And the imagination, as now, had a tendency to run to unpleasant places unless you took the time to fill in the critical gaps.  "I was just...look, I don't think you're a Kowakian monkey-lizard.  Or any other kind of lower life form.  I swear."

"Hmm...okay, so at least I make 'sentient' status in your book.  That's a good thing."  Dal'kepel managed a crooked grin, at least for a bit.  "But anyway...I just want you to _know_ I would never do anything without your say-so.  Plus, I definitely picked up on the fact that you're already seeing someone, and just because I'm not the 'marriage' kinda guy doesn't mean I butt into pre-existing relationships.  The whole thing just makes me feel kinda dirty.  I don't like feeling like I stuck my business into an invisible threesome, and I _really_ don't like being somebody's tool for getting revenge on their man, whether or not they're gonna come running after me with blasters blazing.

"But _most_ of all I do _not_ go where I'm not a hundred percent wanted, so you have got _absolutely nothing to worry about me_.  I mean, yeah, I _know_ you can more than handle yourself--you've gotten in with the _Sith_ , for crying out loud!--so I know it's not like you must think I actually _could_ get away with anything if I tried.  But I don't _want_ to try," the Twi'lek concluded, looking almost winded by the ramble, "and I guess I just don't want you thinking I would."

Things were only getting _more_ surreal instead of less...for the consideration Dal'kepel was showing right now for her limits had an immediate comparison in Ashara's mind.  And that was Lord Tarssus Kallig, who, despite the front he had to put on for the public and some of his own crew, hated the very _thought_ of Ashara feeling uncomfortable.  "Um...thanks," she told Dal'kepel.  "I believe you."

"Whew...good...okay."  The Twi'lek smuggler gathered his composure.  "I may be jumping out of the sarlacc and into the black hole here, but that brings me to the other thing I'd been meaning to ask you about, even _before_ the little incident."

"What's that?"

Dal'kepel let out a soft, short sigh.  "Never thought I'd be saying this, Miss Sith, but you've got some of us worried.  Not _about_ you-- _for_ you."  _Uh-oh._   Ashara held her tongue.  The smuggler captain took that as his invitation to continue.  "I know you've got your mission, whatever it is, and that's one thing.  But it kinda sounded like you're seeing someone over there.  A _Sith Lord_."

  
_Yeah,_ definitely _uh-oh_ , Ashara thought to herself.

 

"It's not like I'm gonna report you to the Jedi Council or something."  The words piled out of the smuggler's mouth at a rapid clip, when Ashara didn't answer fast enough for his taste.  "If I'd been planning on _that_ , I wouldna taken this job off those rogue Jedi in the first place.  I got my letter of marque and reprisal from the _Senate_ to work for the _Republic_.  I'm backing the Republic, _not_ the Jedi Order.  They are _not_ one and the same like the Sith are with their Empire, no matter how much the Jedi seem to want it to be.  The Council can bite my ass as far as I'm concerned...that's assuming they can pull their head out of theirs long enough to do it!  Sorry," he said as he lowered his voice, "but there's not a lot of warm-and-fuzzies towards that bunch on this ship."

"I know some of your crew hasn't exactly seen the best sides of the Order," Ashara temporized.  "As for the Council, they've been more...careful, since the business with Revan and the Jedi Civil War.  Nobody wants to go _that_ route again, so they try to keep a united front and make sure things that could lead someone off the Light path are nipped in the bud early."  Ashara folded her arms across her Sith apprentice's robes with a mirthless smirk.  "Obviously _that_ doesn't always work."

"True that," he replied with a wry look of his own.  "But back on subject.  I talked to Kixi and made _sure_ she isn't going to butt into your business and try and find out who you really are and who exactly in the Sith Order you're with.  I didn't think she was going to anyway--she has discretion, knows what's bad for business--but still.  We have actually run into a couple Sith along our way--full-fledged Sith Lords--and they are some _nasty_ pieces of work.  The ones I ran into, I wouldn't put _anything_ past them.  You know one of them actually tried to get in my pants?  Thought she was the Force's greatest gift to man and I was a tasty piece of meat to snack on.  I said no because psycho's not my type."

Ashara felt a pit forming at the bottom of her stomach.  "Wow.  Um...I'm sorry that happened," she managed to eke out.  Barely.  What was she apologizing _for_?  Was it just for the callous way that Sith Lord had propositioned him?  Or was she apologizing for the Sith Order...as if on their behalf?

" _She_ was sorry afterwards...bit off more than she could chew, trying to take on me, Corso, and a Jedi all at the same time."  The Twi'lek smirked, but Ashara sensed a frisson through the Force--the encounter had clearly left more of an impression on him than he cared to admit.  Sure enough, he turned serious again, and he was right back on his target.  "From what I've seen, though, that kind of behavior isn't exactly unusual with the Sith.  So I've gotta ask you this.  Do you _really_ want to go back there?  I don't just mean to the Sith Empire.  I mean to that Sith Lord boyfriend of yours.  I can drop you off anywhere in the Republic you want; I already got enough for this run from Master Quintis to make it _plenty_ worth my while.  And you don't need to worry about what happens when I don't show back up in the Empire with you.  I've already got enough Sith Lords with my name on their naughty list after offing Lord Zare, so adding one more is no skin off my nose."

Oh, man.  He was offering her shelter.  Not a pardon exactly--she'd be a smuggler, a privateer, _and_ probably a wanted murderer in the eyes of the Jedi Order, even though it _hadn't_ been her saber and Tarssus hadn't _wanted_ to do what he'd been backed into doing.  She'd barely be on the right side of the law or the border, but that's what Dal'kepel was trying to give her: his own little piece of asylum.

For all her perceptions in the Force, Ashara hadn't seen this one coming.  She hadn't given it even a second's thought when she embarked on her mission...not on the ride to Scarif, and not even until now, on the way back.  Her mind had been on her mission: forging alliances between heretic Tarssus Kallig and Quintis' breakaway Jedi.  She'd been into the Republic and back once before, on her failed attempt to parlay with Master Cyman.  Knowing Tarssus was waiting with open arms after that stinging rejection had been such a comfort...

...and she _still_ pictured that smile, the diffident gentleness he revealed in his sea-blue eyes whenever they were behind closed doors.  And the Force, the way it was gradually blossoming between them, letting her in bit by bit past whatever it was that so obscured his presence on first sight, confirming that there _was_ Light there, that it wasn't just her eyes and her heart _wishing_ to see it as a salve on her conscience.  He was waiting for her now.  And if she didn't return, she knew: his heart would be broken.  And by that fact, so would hers.

She couldn't say any of that to Dal'kepel.  He didn't know exactly who she was working with in the Empire, couldn't know just how far Tarssus' heresy really went, or it could get him and a lot of other people killed.  But as she thought about it, she knew what she _could_ tell him.  "Thank you so much for the offer...but no thanks.  I know it's risky, but I want to stick with this."

Dal'kepel sighed again, misgivings clearly not allayed.  His brown eyes pried deeper into hers--he couldn't read her through the Force of course, but she got the sense he sure wanted to.  "I gotta ask you something else, and I am gonna be deadly serious," he enunciated.  "I know what the Sith allow.  What they are capable of.  I told you I've seen the preview of it myself.  I know I can't _make_ you, but I _really_ want you to tell me straight.  Is he threatening you or hurting you in any way?  Physically, verbally...Force stuff?"

_No!_ she wanted to shout.  It took all she had in her not to. Her cheeks and ears burned at the thought.  The accusation.  She _couldn't_ expose the full depth of Tarssus' secrets.  But she _had_ to say _something_.  Every millisecond might be getting one step closer to Dal'kepel deciding on his own to break the contract with Master Quintis and do whatever he felt he needed to do to make sure she got the protection in the Republic he worried she might need.  Might even deliver her right to the orthodox Jedi Order and _their_ bittersweet mix of pity and recriminations.

She reached out to the Force with one quick push, and there she found the spark for her words and the steadiness for her voice.  "No," she answered the smuggler captain, meeting his eyes straight on.  "He doesn't.  He has temperance--he checks his fighting at the door, always has.  He's levelheaded enough to not to mix love and war.  And this mission...the one we're in together, to try and open up some backchannels between our peoples...that shows me he's got the staying power to keep committed to what he's said he's going to do."

It was only half an answer at best--stripped almost entirely of what it really _meant_ to Tarssus, and to her, for them to drop their guards entirely before each other and truly _be_ what they were.  But it would have to do.  She found herself willing the Force, as a Sith would, to do the rest of the work for her.  Not through the coercive force of a mind trick...which she was growing to despise more and more after Tarssus' own disdain...but for the sake of the universe itself going the way it ought to go as opposed to the way it might try to go without her strong suggestion otherwise.

As for Dal'kepel, he nodded.  Resigned himself, perhaps, but his mind seemed made up.  "That's good to know," he said.  "I hope it stays that way for you.  I really do.  I'm still gonna give you some contact info just in case--a hidden inbox Kixi set up on your side of the border that'll get a secure message through without having to beam a signal out into Republic space, and some code phrases she and Von worked out for you.  Hopefully, if this Sith Lord of yours can keep his head screwed on straight--not to mention attached to his shoulders--you won't have to use it."

"Thanks for thinking of me...I mean it.  And thanks for letting me go."  Ashara smiled, just a bit.  A little weight had been lifted off her shoulders--certainly not all or even _most_ of it, for such was the nature of her mission and the abiding _attachment_ that made it all mean so much to her to fulfill.  Still she felt torn...Republic and Empire, Jedi and Sith.  And there was still so much about this, this _being with_ someone, Sith or no Sith, that she had yet to work her way through.

But the thought of the open arms that awaited her on her return...that gave her the strength to see it through

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **CANON NOTE:** First, Master Quintis' species and first name are of my invention. But the big one--yes, I changed the composition of the SWTOR Smuggler's crew. Of all the stories SWTOR has to offer, the canon crew for the Smuggler makes it feel the most derivative, with a princess and a Wookiee, and I really didn't want to go with that. And you may also notice Akaavi Spar is missing too...I just didn't see Dal'kepel having the patience to deal with a vengeance-obsessed Mandalorian on his crew. So instead, I picked up a couple of side characters the Smuggler runs into, who caught my eye: Kixiaralu the computer slicer he frees on Coruscant (her surname of Wihtu is not canon), and Vonddado Briimyo, the Neimoidian engineer he frees on Alderaan. The idea of his giving these people safety and employment really fit the way I envisioned Dal'kepel. The geeky personalities I developed for Kixi and Von are my own invention, as SWTOR leaves a mostly blank slate to work with.
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> **ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:** Thank you to several people on deviantART, starting with SpacelingArt for the awesome commission of Dal'kepel when I'd barely even written the first words of this story. You did a great job capturing the confident, Lando-like image he presents off his ship. (I didn't realize just how much he lets his lekku down on his ship--hope you enjoy that side of him too! :D ) Thank you as well to Youalahuan and Kweh-chan for making me even more driven, through the work you did, to want to work with a Neimoidian character that can hopefully expand people's idea about a species that gets a whole lot of flack from parts of the fandom.
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> Notes: Vonddado Briimyo's outfit in my continuity is based heavily on the coat seen on the right in [this image](https://patternkingdom.com//S4059.jpg), and the hat in [this one](https://www.medievalcollectibles.com/p-49669-king-henry-hat.aspx). I know that the way the Neimoidians were portrayed in the Prequel Trilogy was controversial in some quarters, but personally, I always took after the visual cues of their costumes, which to me evoked the powerful merchant families of the medieval and early Renaissance Italian city-states. I always connected their aesthetic with the de' Medici, a family who became politically and religiously powerful not because of royal blood but because of their business acumen. In particular Cosimo de' Medici comes to mind. So to make a long story short, when I tried to imagine what a Neimodian mechanic might wear off duty, once he got free of his captor, I looked to the same timeframe as when the Casa de' Medici first came to prominence. Vonddado may not have a huge amount of wealth to flaunt, and he may have problems with some of his world's traditions (particularly the backstabbing and the practice of literally encouraging grubs to kill each other), but he does still adhere to SOME traditions--even if for the purpose of someday being able to give a nice big middle finger to the people who have tried to keep him down.
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> As for the game Vonddado and Kixi are playing, _Elementals_ , yes--it's intended to remind you of _Magic: The Gathering_ , which I haven't played, but I thought it would be fun to imagine something like that existing in the SW universe. I haven't thought much about the rules and gameplay, but the idea is that like the mana in Magic, there are sources or "founts" of midichlorians that are tuned to each of six basic elements, which in Elementals are defined as Plasma, Metal, Stone, Water, Tholin, and Void.


End file.
